modelcontextprotocol / modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk
docs: no guidance for supporting SDK 1.x and 2.x at the same time
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Description
Problem
docs/migration.md is a one-way guide: it tells you what to change once you move to 2.x. It has no guidance for the case where you cannot hard-cut, which is the situation of anyone maintaining a published MCP server or library while the ecosystem is split across both majors.
Concretely: the day 2.0.0 shipped, fresh installs of our published servers started resolving mcp==2.0.0 and crashed at import (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'mcp.server.fastmcp'), while existing users were still on 1.x. The realistic fix for a package author in that window is not "migrate", it is "support both majors for a transition period". I could not find a recipe for that anywhere in docs/.
What we ended up doing
Running in production since late July on two registry-listed servers (data-profiler-mcp, acb-tax-mcp):
try:
# MCP SDK 2.x: FastMCP was renamed to MCPServer and the module moved.
from mcp.server.mcpserver import MCPServer as FastMCP
except ImportError:
# MCP SDK 1.x keeps the original path.
from mcp.server.fastmcp import FastMCP
together with:
- a dependency pin of
mcp>=1.2.0,<3so installs may resolve either major, and - a dedicated CI job that force-installs
"mcp>=1.2.0,<2"and re-runs the test suite, so the 1.x fallback path stays tested while the main matrix resolves 2.x.
For code that stays on the FastMCP-level API surface (constructor, @mcp.tool(), run()), this has been sufficient: both lines pass the same test suite unchanged.
Proposal
A short section, roughly "Supporting 1.x and 2.x during the transition", covering:
- the import shim above,
- dependency-pin guidance (
mcp>=1.2.0,<3, and why an upper bound of<2alone strands your users), - testing both lines in CI (one extra pinned job is enough), and
- a sentence on when to drop the 1.x path.
I would keep it to roughly 40 to 60 lines.
Scoping questions before I write anything
- #3183 is trimming
migration.mddown to genuine breaking changes, so this may not belong there. Would you rather see it as a short section inmigration.md, or as a separate small docs page (e.g.docs/compatibility.md)? - If the answer is "we deliberately do not want to encourage dual-major support", that is a fair position; happy to close.
If maintainers think it is worth having, I will send the PR.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Read docs/migration.md and review issue #3183 to understand the planned migration documentation scope. Then determine whether the guidance belongs there or in docs/compatibility.md, covering the proposed import shim, dependency bounds, CI coverage for both major versions, and when to drop the 1.x path; it is done when the transition recipe is documented clearly.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- documentation
- Issue type
- Documentation
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- Half a day
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 62/100